American Digest - The Top 40

Comments: Why Liberals Love Trains

Liberals hate the Taggart Transcontinental railroad.

Posted by Potsie at February 8, 2013 1:48 PM

Two years ago, I explained that "High Speed Rail is not about transportation. It's about government."

Riders on a train need not be considered as individuals. They are collectively the masses. There few things that give the Left more salivating joy than the prospect of the masses moving together as one under government control, according to government schedules, to and from government-selected terminals, at government-set speeds, with their on-board activities strictly controlled (no smoking, etc.). While aboard the train, the rider-masses are more completely, physically under the government thumb than they'll ever be the rest of the day. And that is a true dream of the Left.

As the Denver Post's David Harsanyi put it, "Progressivism is the belief that we have too much freedom with which to make too many stupid choices."

Liberal love railroads because the railroad workers are easy to unionize. Once unionized they must kick part of their salaries back to the Party. They can get arbitrary raises by threatening to strike at vital times. It is a shakedown racket.

Posted by Fat Man at February 8, 2013 7:13 PM

When I'm back in the States, I frequently drive on stretches of that I-4 corridor between Orlando and Tampa. As Mr. Will noted, they're on crack if they think 30 million people per year are going to use the train along this route. The population density, even adding in the Orlando tourists, simply isn't there. Gov. Scott was right to refuse that money-wasting project.

I've ridden trains in the US, Germany, Italy, Japan, Australia, and Turkey, and when they go where I want, when I want, for the price I want, I'll hop on board. Otherwise, I'll fly or drive. To me, a train is just another way of getting somewhere. When it becomes a money-sucking fetish, like in this administration, then something else is going on besides transportation.

Posted by waltj at February 8, 2013 8:12 PM

Leftists (there are no liberals) love trains because they imagine THEY can make them run on time.